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Author Topic: Wireless internet switch from satellite - Need advice  (Read 3265 times)

Xvareon

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Wireless internet switch from satellite - Need advice
« on: December 21, 2020, 04:55:12 pm »

I'm looking into switching my home internet from HughesNet Satellite into a wireless provider if I can, possibly Verizon since they have an authorized retailer near me. I've never ever had wireless internet, though, so I'm hoping for advice and the how-to on making this work. What kind of equipment do I need to buy, do I need someone at my house to install something special, and so on. I'm hoping for a plan that doesn't hard-cap my usage (like an unlimited one), though throttling after X gigabytes is OK, since I'm plenty used to that with HughesNet and I can still use that even after being slowed down.

More specifically, the main reason I'm wanting to switch is because satellite internet has a really hard cap on how fast it can go, since the signal must bounce into space, to me, back to space and to the provider. That results in ping times averaging about 1300ms. Having faster wireless would open alot of doors for me, most notably letting me actually play twitch reflex games I'd have no chance of playing before.

Points:
  • For context, I needed satellite internet in the first place because I live just far enough from town to not be able to get cable/DSL.
  • I live in the bottom of a small valley surrounded by trees on all sides, so I can't even make a cellphone call with my flipper without going up to the highway, but satellite gets above the trees just fine.
  • Recently, a cellphone tower was installed near my location, or what I'm fairly certain is a signal boost tower, so I think I'd be able to get internet off that. But when I search for my address on Verizon's website, the results come back negative.

I'm just slow to deal with complex things like this, so hopefully someone with more experience can help me out. Thanks!
« Last Edit: December 21, 2020, 05:05:52 pm by Xvareon »
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A_Curious_Cat

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Re: Wireless internet switch from satellite - Need advice
« Reply #1 on: December 22, 2020, 12:05:00 am »

Have you considered Starlink?
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Telgin

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Re: Wireless internet switch from satellite - Need advice
« Reply #2 on: December 24, 2020, 03:59:40 pm »

I don't have a lot of experience with cellular internet like this, but at least back when my parents had it, everything had hard data caps of a few GB per month or had excessive overage fees for exceeding your quota.  Maybe that's changed recently.

What shows up on their website probably doesn't really reflect the availability for you though.  If you can get a good cell phone signal, it'll probably work.  If you can't, it won't.  You mention that a new tower was installed nearby recently, so has that improved reception?

If you can get it to work, it does work a lot better than satellite internet, or at least the latency is much better.  I had to deal with Hughes.net for many years because we lived outside of town as well, and I despised it.
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Xvareon

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Re: Wireless internet switch from satellite - Need advice
« Reply #3 on: December 24, 2020, 04:32:46 pm »

What shows up on their website probably doesn't really reflect the availability for you though.  If you can get a good cell phone signal, it'll probably work.  If you can't, it won't.  You mention that a new tower was installed nearby recently, so has that improved reception?

No. It hasn't. I still have the same issues getting any kind of cellphone signal in my valley that I did before the tower. However, I have a cheap TracFone flipper, and I also figured that tower just might not service my specific kind of cellular connection or something.

wierd

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Re: Wireless internet switch from satellite - Need advice
« Reply #4 on: December 24, 2020, 11:15:11 pm »

It would require you to amortize the expense, but you can install your own cellular repeater.

You will need a large utility pole installed on your property to activate it, but they do work. On the plus side, it would permit you to use a cellphone as well.
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